By the way, to me that sentence is perfectly clear, and I'm not a native speaker :D I mean, it sounds common and well-known to me... The most difficult term would be "branch" but that is pretty known, I guess...
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AlenannoJun 22 '11 at 8:50

For some reason I have gambol associated with four legged creatures, and caper associated with humans... not sure why, but I have quite a strong association so it must come from childhood books, I guess.
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Rory AlsopJun 22 '11 at 10:16

2

I'd agree with Rory: they're not wrong when applied to birds, but have odd connotations.
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TimLymingtonJun 22 '11 at 11:11

1

All apologies, though I can't be held responsible for your psychological associations.
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Grant ThomasJun 22 '11 at 11:56

Brachiate should serve the purpose best. It can do away with the use of branch without loss of specific meaning. It can convey an act of movement and give an imagery of the kind of movement. With any of the other words, we may still have to use branch: flit from branch to branch, not merely flit.

If brachiate brings back images of monkeys and not birds, it is only because of prior use, which should not be a constraint, I feel.